


AUs and Tropes Go Canon (Destiel/SPN style)

by grey2510



Series: Misc SPN One Shots (<10k words) [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Related, Fluff, M/M, Tropes, Twists on Typically AU/HS tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 00:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3999304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/pseuds/grey2510
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just as the title implies. Originally started as a challenge to take typically HS AUs or cheesy tropes AUs and make them fit canon. I'm marking this as completed, but I might add more later.</p><p>Each chapter is its own story; each are one-shots.<br/>Ch. 1: Spin the Bottle (Coda to 10x18)<br/>Ch. 2: Deserted Island (set sometime after season 9)<br/>Ch. 3: Seven Minutes in Heaven (set sometime after 10x17 and ignoring 21-23)<br/>Ch. 4: Coffee Shop (set sometime after 10x5)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spin the Bottle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coda to 10x18

“Dude, Charlie, _no_. We are _not_ playing Spin the Bottle,” Dean laughs, grabbing another slice of pizza.

“Why not?” she pouts, her eyes twinkling.

“Uh, because half of us here are related by blood? And we’re not twelve? And you like chicks so why would you want to play with us anyway?”

“What’s Spin the Bottle?” Cas asks earnestly. Dean catches Sam’s eye across the table, and although the guy’s been kinda out of it all night—guess burning the _Book of the Damned_ and the fight with the Styne guy hit him harder than Dean thought—Sam still manages a smirk and a look that clearly says,  _You explain it to him. I’m not!_

Dean sighs.

“It’s nothing, Cas. Just a kids’ game,” Dean tries to deflect, and he makes a point of _not_ looking directly at Cas because the thought of kissing Sam is just gross, Charlie’s cute but again, she’s off limits and even if she weren’t, she’s like a little sister to him, which leaves the thought of kissing Cas...and that doesn’t weird him out as much as it should. He shakes his head, dislodging those thoughts.

“Oh,” Cas remarks, although it’s clear he’s still curious why a children’s game would evoke such a strong reaction. Cas shifts in his seat, then twists when he realizes his trenchcoat is starting to slip off the back of the chair; he adjusts it, then settles back. Dean watches, somehow amazed at how both normal and abnormal Cas looks without the coat; the angel barely looks like himself without it, but he just seems so casual and relaxed and _human._ Dean’s glad Cas has his mojo back (Cas in all his smiting glory is kinda hot if you’re not on the receiving end of it), but he’d be lying if he said the thought of Cas as human and around more wasn’t appealing, too. _Wait. What the fuck…Cas in all his smiting glory is badass. That’s what I meant,_ Dean internally panics; he then concentrates on washing down some pizza with beer.

Charlie snaps Dean back to the present as she rolls her eyes and actually answers Cas' question. “It’s a game where you put an empty bottle in the center of a circle, and then one person spins it. Then the person who spun it has to kiss whoever the bottle points to when it stops spinning.”

“Oh,” Cas repeats and his eyes automatically flick over to Dean’s, but he flicks them back quickly and looks down at the table.

Dean notices Sam and Charlie exchange a look, but chooses to ignore it by taking an unnecessarily large bite of pizza. He knows that look, and he hates that look. (The “Destiel—Deastiel—CasDean” conversation at the musical still bugs the crap out of him, and Sam had had that same look then. _Asshole._ ) He also knows that challenging them on that look will just earn him more questions than he wants. _Jerks._ He eats his pizza vengefully with a scowl.

“Ok, fine, Mr. Party Pooper,” Charlie grins, as she holds up the paper she’d been folding and doodling on earlier. “Fortune Tellers, then.”

And Dean realizes he’s been totally set up. Charlie never wanted to play Spin the Bottle. She _knew_ Dean’d shut it down and then feel like he has to agree to the stupid Fortune Teller or else he’d look defensive or like a jackass. _Damn, she’s good. No wonder she’s Queen._

Sam is trying desperately to keep a straight face. Cas, of course, is confused again.

“Before you ask, Cas, it’s not really a Fortune Teller. It’s just another game,” Dean grumbles. Charlie shoots him an look of mock indignation.

“You shut your mouth, handmaiden. It is, too, a real Fortune Teller. I’m magical. Alright, Cas. Wanna know your future?”

“I suppose. What do I do?”

“Pick a color from the four on the corners,” she instructs, holding the Fortune Teller out to the angel.

“Green,” he replies promptly. Charlie meets Dean’s eyes and smirks, and Dean feels the heat rising on the back of his neck.

“G-R-E-E-N,” Charlie spells out, moving the Fortune Teller open and closed. “Ok, pick a number from the ones inside.”

“Seven.”

“1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Ok, pick another.”

“Four.”

Charlie grins and opens a flap. Dean’s stomach knots.

“Your crush will kiss you soon,” the redhead pronounces with a flourish. Sam smirks. Dean's scowl deepens. Cas looks perplexed.

“What’s a ‘crush?’”

“Someone you have romantic feelings towards, but they might not know it,” Charlie explains, and that _look_ is back again on her face. Cas looks surprised, but pleased and a bit embarrassed. Dean just begins grabbing empty plates and stacking them up.

“I hate you,” Dean mumbles under his breath as he and Charlie bring the dishes over to the sink.

“Nah, you love me,” she counters. “...and Cas.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, c’mon. Go get ‘em tiger.” She gives him a playful punch on the arm. Dean rolls his eyes.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Gotta talk to you about something. C’mon.” Dean says gruffly, heading for the kitchen door and ignoring the _looks_ on Charlie and Sam’s faces.

Once they’re in the hallway, far enough away from the kitchen for his sibling and honorary-sibling not to hear, Dean grabs Cas by the lapels of his suitcoat and plants a kiss on the angel’s lips. Cas’ eyes grow wide with surprise, and he freezes. Dean pulls away.

“This works better when you kiss back, too, dude.”

Cas smiles. “I’m sorry, Dean; I was just surprised my fortune came true so quickly. Charlie really is magical. Do we...need to spin a bottle for this?”

“Fuck no.”

And then the angel pushes Dean back against the wall, and Dean realizes the guy has picked up quite a few tricks from the pizza man.


	2. Deserted Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not set in any particular season (although I reference events in seasons 7 and 9). Cas has Fallen, however, and is human.

Dean’s fingers drum impatiently on the steering wheel as he waits for the car ahead of him to inch through the dead-crawl traffic, thanks to some pretty major construction. Usually, he tries to stay away from the major highways and high-congestion areas to avoid crap like this, but even backroads and routes need roadwork sometimes. Hazard of the job and living on the road... What’s the joke he heard one time he was up this way on a case? Massachusetts only has two seasons: Winter and Construction. _They ain’t lying_ , he thinks bitterly.

His eyes slide over to Cas in the passenger seat where the former angel looks calmly out the window at the unchanging scenery. Dean knows—only because he’s known the guy for so long—that behind the stillness is just as much impatience as Dean feels. The inhuman stillness is just a hold-over from when Cas was all mojo-ed up and angelified; in truth, Cas is a warrior: a doer, not an idler.

The silence isn’t bad, though. The case is over, they’re heading back to the bunker and Sam, they’re not fighting each other, there’s no Apocalypse. The silence would be comfortable except for the fact that Dean is _bored_. So. Fucking. Bored. If Baby could talk, Dean’s sure she’d agree: Baby was built to roar down the blacktop, not putter in an endless line of bumpers.

And so, out of this boredom, Dean asks a very strange question. Well, partly out of boredom, and partly because watching Cas try to figure out silly human stuff is always worth a laugh.

“So, Cas,” Dean begins, and the former angel turns to him inquisitively. “If you were stranded on a deserted island but you could take three things with you, what would they be?”

Cas’ eyebrows furrow and he tilts his head in that way that is just so _Cas._ “I don’t understand. We’re at least fifty miles from the ocean, and as far as I know we are not in danger of being deserted on an island.”

“Yeah, I know, man,” Dean chuckles. “That’s not the point. It’s just a hypothetical question. Make you think about what’s important to you or some shit.”

“Oh,” Cas says contemplatively. “In this hypothetical scenario, why do you get the option of what to bring with you? Doesn’t that suggest there may be a way to escape getting deserted in the first place?”

“...uh, sure, I guess. No, just...ok, how about I answer first and show you what I mean?”

“That might be helpful,” Cas admits.

“Hmm, alright,” Dean mumbles. He really should have thought this out before asking Cas. “Ok, so ignoring the obvious—like stuff for survival or how to get off the damn island ‘cause that’s a boring answer—I’d take my dad’s journal, my music, and—well, I’d say Baby but she probably wouldn’t be much good on a deserted island unless there are roads—so I’ll go with a laptop with magical Internet access.”

“I don’t think those exist, Dean.”

“I know, Cas. I just meant...never mind. Fine. I’d take the pictures I have of Mom and Sammy and Bobby and you and everyone. Ok, your turn.” Dean gives a half-grin as the line of traffic starts to move and the speedometer actually breaks 20 mph. _Halle-fucking-lujah._

Cas considers silently for a minute before responding. “I would take my angel blade. And perhaps my trenchcoat—my first one, Jimmy’s, the one you saved for me.”

Dean snorts, although he blushes slightly when Cas mentions that last part. He covers quickly. “Still got one more thing, dude.”

“I would take you,” the former angel replies matter-of-factly.

Dean’s head whips over to the other man. “I’m not a thing, Cas!”

“You said the point of the question was to make you think about what’s important to you. You are important to me.”

“What, and I only rank third behind an angel blade and a fucking trenchcoat?” Dean scoffs indignantly.

“I didn’t list them in any particular order. But if you must know, I would certainly rank you first out of the three.”

“Uh...oh. Thanks,” Dean stammers eloquently. Suddenly, his brain catches up with the conversation, then freezes, and he almost rams into the stopped car ahead of him. _Wait. Was I really only bothered the fact that Cas called me a thing? And that I thought a coat and blade beat me? _“Hold on, Cas,” Dean begins again, his brain slowly churning through some very conflicted and confused thoughts. “Are you saying I’m the most important thing in the world for you?”

“Yes. I thought that was obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“I rebelled against Heaven for you, Dean. I gave up my army for you. I Fell and became human for you.”

“Right.” Well, when you put it like that, it is pretty obvious, though Dean can’t figure out for the life of him why Cas has done all this for _him._ Not that Dean is entirely bothered by this, he admits to himself (finally, begrudgingly, hesitantly)—after all, there’s a reason he held onto that damn trenchcoat for so long after he thought Cas had died. “Well, since we’re changing the rules and bringing people to the island, can I change my answer?”

“It was your question, Dean, not mine. I have no idea what the rules are.”

“Ok, fine. I’m bringing Sam. And maybe someone for Sam. Like bring Jess back or someone awesome like her. Anyway, someone to distract Sammy and keep him busy is what I’m saying.”

“Why would you want to bring Sam only to distract him?” Cas wonders.

“Because I’m bringing you, too, you dope. And I wouldn’t want Sammy third-wheeling us. I’m not _that_ shitty of an older brother,” Dean says with a suggestive smirk over at Cas.

Cas’ eyes widen. “Oh,” is all the former angel manages, but there is a distinct look of pleasure and hope in his expression.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“I’d rank you first, too.”


	3. Seven Minutes in Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set sometime after 10x17 “Inside Man.” The setup of Heaven is based off of a blend of “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Inside Man.” This is a canon-divergent fic that pretty much ignores the last few episodes of season 10: Cas is human, the Mark is gone, Heaven is still only accessible by playground portal, and Charlie is alive (because fuck 10x21—I’m pretending that shit never happened).
> 
> (Oh and in some ways, this is kind of a reverse version of ["Shore Leave"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3788287) from my [Light's Grace!verse series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/233733)—same basic idea of technology and magic. *shameless plug* You should totally go read the series. You'll like it. I promise...well, I hope, at least.)

They’ve done a lot of stupid stuff before, but even for Dean Winchester, this sounds fucking nuts.

“Ok, run this by me one more time. You want to _hack_ Heaven?” Maybe if he asks the question again, the response will make more sense.

“It’s been done before!” Charlie explains in protest. “I read the books: when you and Sam met Ash up there, he said Heaven was a practical application of string theory.”

“Your point?”

“Well, since there aren’t any magical ways of reversing Metatron’s spell and opening up Heaven, what if we tried something a little more modern? What’s the worst that could happen?” Charlie’s face falls a bit when she realizes what she’s just said, but she perks up again quickly. “C’mon. You guys are like the Katnisses of the real world: the odds are never in your favor but you still win.”

Dean ignores the comparison to a teenage girl (although, at least she’s a badass one), and continues on to make his point. “Right, because taking a jaunt upstairs and _coming back_ is just so easy.”

And that, really, is the big kink in the plan. Sure, each of the Winchesters has made the afterlife hat trick—Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory—but one of these days, it’s gonna stick, and if Dean’s going out for good, he wants it to be in a blaze of glory or old and fat with a beer in his hand (not that he's holding out much hope for that last one), not on a risky mission to play _The Matrix_ with Heaven.

“But that’s just it! Sam dug up this spell to separate the soul from the body—kinda like astral projection—and combined with my program, I can target you to end up in Heaven, temporarily. Then you just find Ash, get him the other half of the program to run on his end, and _voil_ _à!_ Heaven’s back open for business, _sans_ playground portal. Hm. Apparently I’m feeling very French today. Anyway, it’ll work.” Charlie turns the laptop screen towards them as though the complex coding means anything to Dean.

“Interesting,” Cas comments with a tilt of his head, his eyes flicking across the lines of numbers and letters, even though Dean is fairly certain the ex-angel can’t read code.

“Wait, Sammy, you’re in on this, too?” Dean turns to his brother, surrounded by books strewn on the bunker library tables.

“Well, yeah, Dean. We’ve been looking for ages for a way to open Heaven again. Just because _Crowley_ said the spell was irreversible—”

“Alright, alright, Crowley’s a douche, blah blah blah. Not the point. I’m asking are you actually on board with booking a trip to the Pearly Gates on the off chance that this works?”

Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Actually, I wouldn’t be going. Someone has to work the spell and Charlie has to work the program. So it’d have to be you and Cas.”

“Oh, awesome, that’s fucking perfect. Thanks, Sammy. And I’m _sure_ that’s _just_ what Cas wants.”

“It does make sense, Dean," Cas adds in that low gravel of his. "Even though anyone of us could feasibly work the spell, I know the inner workings of Heaven better than either you or Sam. So, I am going; whether I am accompanied by you or Sam is really the only matter for debate.”

“Fucking hell,” Dean grumbles. He’s good at spellwork, but nowhere near as good as Sam (and if things go sideways, he wants Sam on the ground working his research mojo to fix things pronto). Besides, there’s no way he’d let Cas go alone or without him. “So how long do we have when we’re up there?”

“Seven minutes,” Sam supplies. “Then the spell will wear out and pull you back.”

“Shit, that doesn’t give us much time.”

“Time moves differently in Heaven. It will seem longer up there than down here,” Cas explains. “It should be enough.”

“Wait, is no one really going to make a Seven Minutes in Heaven joke?” Charlie snickers. “Dudes, missed opportunity.”

Cas looks puzzled by Charlie’s remark and Sam is trying badly to school his face into seriousness. Dean scowls. Before Cas can ask what “Seven Minutes in Heaven” is, Dean steers the conversation back to the plan.

“Alright, so when we get up there, any idea where we’ll be?” Even if Cas says they’ll have enough time, Dean isn’t going into this blind: the more he knows, the quicker this will go.

Charlie peers at the code, then looks between Sam and Cas. “I think, based on what Cas has said about the structure of Heaven, it’ll drop you into your own personal heavens. Then you’ll have to break out, find each other, then find Ash’s heaven.”

“Oh man, that’s going to take forever,” Dean sighs, remembering traipsing through his highlight reel looking for Sam back during the Apocalypse. His and Sam’s heavens had been linked on the road, but would Cas’ be so easy to get to? _Wait...does Cas even...? Shit._ He swallows, not sure how to ask this question. “Cas, do you...do you have a personal heaven, now? I mean, since you were an angel but now you’re human…?”

“Yes,” Cas says simply, thankfully not offended or hurt by the question. “In place of my Grace, I now have a soul.”

“Oh, um, good. That’s good.” Dean mumbles, trying not to let his fear and subsequent relief show too strongly. Charlie narrows her eyes at him, but he ignores her.

Considering how often the Winchesters & Co. flirt with death, Dean supposes he should have considered what will happen to Cas once he dies, but he’d been so concerned with making sure Cas could survive the day-to-day of humanity that the afterlife hadn’t even crossed his mind. And for reasons he doesn’t want to think about too deeply, the sudden realization that Cas might not have an afterlife or that it might be in Purgatory or Hell had scared him more than the actual thought of Cas dying. And then, again for reasons he plans on pushing away vehemently, finding out Cas has a shot at Heaven had made his stomach flip.

“Dean?” Sam asks, obviously having noted Dean’s expression.

“Nothing. Let’s do this. Let’s hack Heaven.”

 

**

 

As much as he would love to stop and enjoy these memories again—fireworks with Sammy, pie with his mom—Dean rushes through each of them, trying to find the road and Cas. Suddenly, the highlight reel changes from what he expects.

He is standing in the back alley behind a brothel—that “den of iniquity” as Cas had called it—looking at Cas, who is wearing an expression of supreme shock. Except, in his memory, that expression had been one of bemusement and an unsure smile as Cas had watched Dean laugh his ass off.

“Cas?” Half of Dean doesn’t expect a response, since the dream versions of everyone else never deviate from script. But the other half of Dean suspects that this time, it might be different.

“Dean? Is this...is this the brothel? The night before we summoned Raphael?”

“Yeah...how did...how are you here?” Dean stammers.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Cas says with a cocked eyebrow. Suddenly his face clouds and his jaw sets firmly. “Come, we don’t have much time.”

And before Dean can ask any more questions, Cas grips him by the upper arm and they head for the road at the end of the alley. But before they get there, Dean stops Cas.

“Wait, last time I was here, you said the road goes to the Garden. But we don’t want to go to the Garden. We need to get out of our memories and find Ash.”

“True, but the road also leads each person to their final memory, their actual personal heaven. From there, we can break out of our heavens and use the angels’ hallways to navigate quickly to Ash’s heaven. Assuming he doesn’t find us first.”

“Angels’ hallways?”

“Think of them like backdoor maintenance corridors. It makes finding and organizing souls much easier. Each heaven is behind a door listing the occupant, and all the doors are sorted alphabetically.” Cas quirks a smile. “When Sam and I asked for Bobby’s assistance, he opened all the doors in the Robert Singer hallway as a distraction.”

“Sounds like something he’d do.” Dean chuckles, long over the anger he’d felt when he’d first heard of Cas’ trip upstairs to get Metatron. He jogs a couple steps to catch up with Cas, who has continued to the road. “Wait, this is a shitty plan. We’re gonna get split up again when we get to our final memories.”

Cas stops, and Dean swears the guy looks almost ashamed. “I don’t believe that will be an issue.”

“What’re you talking about?” Dean narrows his eyes at Cas, but the ex-angel just points behind Dean. They’ve reached the road, but Dean has been so focused on Cas that he hadn’t even noticed the scenery change to a dense, washed out forest. Purgatory. “What the fuck?” _How the hell is this place a good memory?_

But then he looks around him, looks at the tattered trenchcoated figure before him, down at his own beaten leather jacket, and he hears the water lap softly over the rocks at the river shore. To the side, Benny is glaring at Cas in annoyance, but Dean pays the memory-vampire no attention. _Oh._

“This is where you found me,” Cas says softly, and suddenly Dean remembers the flood of relief and joy he’d felt when he’d seen the angel crouched by the river after so many months of searching and praying. He remembers the swoop in his stomach as he’d enveloped Cas in his arms and then told him he wouldn’t leave Purgatory without him.

“Cas—” Dean begins, but Cas has already started to climb up the embankment to the path at the top of the hill. Dean charges up behind him, but he can’t stop the ex-angel before Cas reaches the track.

They’re in Nora’s house after cleaning up after, and disposing of, the Rit Zien. Dean is holding baby Tanya, rocking her to sleep and Cas is holding the bottle of infant Tylenol Dean had shown him in the bathroom cabinet. Without a word, Dean puts the baby into the crib, and despite the fact that it’s just a memory, Cas still leans over to cover her with a blanket and press a kiss to the girl’s temple. Dean’s heart does something that he refuses to call skipping a beat. Cas suddenly straightens up in alarm, as if he has been caught doing something he shouldn’t, and he rushes from the room and out of the house to the road.

“Cas, stop!” Something Cas said just before they’d entered the Purgatory memory comes back to him. “What’d you mean you don’t think getting split up is going to be a problem?” he calls to Cas’ back, even though he suspects the answer, even though that answer terrifies him. Cas stops just before the road, his eyes flicking back and forth before settling on Dean’s own.

“When you and Sam were here, you saw each other’s memories, but you could not participate in them, correct?”

“Yeah...” Dean admits, thinking particularly of the fireworks memory where the Sam there is just a kid, or the memory of Mom and how it had nearly killed Sam that he couldn’t talk to her, too.

“That’s because each of you has your own heaven,” Cas’ eyes slide to the side and down to the ground.

“But _we’re_ both in each other’s memories...so...” The words catch in his throat. What had Ash said back in his heavenly Roadhouse? Some people share...? Dean runs his hands through his hair, and unwittingly steps on the road as he paces.

A cool breeze nips at his cheeks, and he feels a tug on the fishing rod in his hand. He looks up from chair he’s in to find Cas standing stoically beside him, looking out to the water before looking down and resting a hand on Dean’s shoulder, a small smile playing on the other man’s lips. And just like in the original dream, Dean suddenly feels at peace, despite the agitation and doubts and questions before he’d found himself here. He knows he should get up, get moving so they can find Ash, but he doesn’t want to disturb the pleasant stillness of the moment. He breathes deeply and closes his eyes for a moment, the earthy smells of the shore and lake grounding him.

“Is this the final memory?” Dean asks in a near whisper as he opens his eyes again.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Cas replies, turning back to land. “I see a road behind that cabin.”

“Oh, right.” Dean isn’t sure if he should be upset or relieved. Reluctantly, he gets up from the chair, dropping the rod. He clears his throat. “How long do you think we have before we get yanked back?” he asks gruffly.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think we have used up our Earthly seven minutes yet. I think we will begin to feel the pull as we get close.”

“Should have had some _Inception_ -style music cues,” Dean tries to joke, but Cas just looks at him confused. Figures. Metatron’s pop-culture download had some gaps that Dean’s been trying to fill, and clearly they’ve found another.

“Duuudes! Sweet place you’ve got here!” Dean and Cas spin to find Ash, sleeveless flannel and mullet and all, striding up to them. Without hesitating, Dean laughs and hugs Ash, then introduces him to Cas.

“How’d you find us?”

“Been trying to track you two ever since I got word you had popped up here again, but damn do you move fast through your memories. This is the longest you’ve stayed put.” Ash squints in the grey sunlight, surveying the lake. “Can’t say I blame ya. All that’s missing is the beer.”

“No problem.” With his foot, Dean nudges a cooler beside the chair towards Ash, who bends to pop it open; he delightedly grabs a can.

“Cheers,” Ash grins as he fishes a set of keys from his pocket, pops the bottom of the can and the tab, and shotguns the beer. “So don’t tell me you got ganked again or the angels dragged your asses up here to fuck around with you some more.”

“Nope, we’re on a hacking mission.” Dean nods to Cas, who pulls out a spelled thumb drive from his pocket. “We’ve got a new you downstairs and she says she thinks she found a way to open Heaven back up. But I guess you’ve got to run half the program from up here while she runs the other half. I dunno. She said you’d get it.”

“Awesome,” Ash says almost reverently as he accepts the thumb drive, eyes greedily drinking in Charlie and Sam's proprietary blend of magic and technology. “Wanna head back to the Roadhouse with me? Watch me work my magic on this baby?”

“I don’t believe we will have time,” Cas says with a hint of regret. “We only have a limited amount of time up here before we will be called back down to our bodies.”

“Hey, no problem, I get it. Well, I’m gonna head back and let you two enjoy your little vacation up here in paradise,” Ash says with a nod around the lakeside, clearly unaware of, or unfazed by, Dean’s embarrassment. “It was good seeing you, bros.”

“Take care, Ash,” Dean manages, and Cas nods good-bye. Without another word, the hacker saunters off down the dock and disappears, leaving Dean and Cas alone again. Cas’ eyes flick to Dean before they return to stare over the water.

“Dean, I’m sorry—”

“Cas.” Dean puts a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “Cas, look at me.”

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out,” Cas says miserably as he turns back to Dean.

“Wait, you knew about this?”

“Not exactly. I knew of my feelings for you, and we have always had that profound bond from when I raised your soul from Hell, but I had no idea it would translate to this once I Fell and gained a soul of my own. Or that there was any possibility that you would...” Cas lets the sentence trail off, but Dean can fill in the blanks.

Dean studies Cas’ face and can find no lie. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you would requite my feelings and I had no wish to make you uncomfortable.”

“Shit, Cas,” Dean breathes, and he can feel laughter bubbling up in him; it’s like the alley behind the brothel all over again. “We’re both idiots.”

“Dean?”

But Dean stops the question by pulling Cas to him, one hand on his hip and the other around the back of his head, and pressing his lips to Cas’, whose eyes go wide at first until the ex-angel sinks into the embrace and kisses back...

...and then Dean feels the pull.

 

**

 

Dean’s eyes fly open and he bolts up straight from the bed just as Cas does the same beside him. Dean had grumbled when they’d begun the spell about doing it in his room, but Sam had argued that he needed to be in the same place as both Dean and Cas to work the spell, and since there wasn’t enough room to drag another mattress into the room, Dean should stop being a pain in the ass and just share the bed with Cas. Plus, they were playing dead, not sleeping together, Charlie had argued. Both of them had earned glares from Dean. But now...after Heaven…

“It worked!” Charlie carols from the table where she’s set up her laptop. Sam just looks relieved to see them both awake.

“You two alright? I mean, it’s like seven minutes on the nose. I was getting worried...”

“It’s all good,” Dean rolls his eyes. “Charlie, Ash get the program up and running?”

“Yep! Heaven’s back open for business!” She fist pumps the air. “I’m a frakking genius.”

“Damn straight,” Dean agrees, but honestly, he just wants Sam and Charlie out of the room.

Cas has gotten up from the bed and is standing awkwardly beside it, straightening his clothes as though nothing is different. Except that for once Cas is not staring right at Dean, and is in fact avoiding his eyes entirely. Dean swallows uncomfortably, not liking the tension so evident in Cas’ posture. Sam follows Dean’s eyes.

“Um, are you two ok?” the younger Winchester asks with puppy-dog eyes of concern.

“We’re fine, Sammy.” Dean grimaces when he realizes how defensive he sounds. “Hey, do you mind if, uh, Cas and I talk for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure, Dean.” Charlie and Sam exchange looks, but they head out of the room.

“Cas, what’s wrong?”

Cas shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other before responding. “Well, now that we are back on Earth, I understand if—”

Dean crosses over to the other side of the room, a grin plastered on his face. “Cas, what’d I just tell you we were?”

Cas’ mouth twitches up into a cautious smile. “Idiots.”

“Yeah. I just found out we’re fucking soulmates and you think I’m going to dump you once we’re back to ground level? Seriously?”

“Well, no...Perhaps...”

“Thanks, Cas. Glad to know you have such a high opinion of me,” Dean smirks. “So, uh, we kinda got cut off back there...” Dean pushes Cas to the wall, picking up right where they left off on the dock.

“I knew it!” Dean hears Sam hiss from the hallway, then a smack and a “Shut up! They’ll hear!” from Charlie.

Dean rolls his eyes. “ _Sammy, go away!_ Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

“Cas, you be good to my handmaiden!” Charlie calls.

“I make no promises,” Cas replies with a somewhat self-conscious grin that Dean makes think things that must certainly call his title of Righteous Man into question. Charlie answers Cas’ remark with a squealed “ooOOoo” as if they’re all back in freaking middle school.

“Shut _up_ , Charlie!” Dean bellows, his face tinged pink. Finally, he hears Charlie and Sam retreat down the hall, snickering. Cas, this time, is the one who resumes the kiss, wrapping his hand around the base of Dean’s neck and pulling him in.

“Cas,” Dean eventually breathes, pulling away. “If the dock wasn’t our final memory, what was? What’s our personal heaven?”

Cas just smiles, his blue eyes bright. “I suppose we will just have to wait and see. But I’m content with waiting. For a long time.”

“Me too.”


	4. Coffee Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set sometime after 10x5.

“I thought you said all you can taste is molecules now that you’re all powered up again?” Dean grouses as he scans the diner parking lot for a spot.

“Yes, it’s true. But certain foods are still palatable despite that. Coffee happens to be one of them because it is such a strong, unique flavor,” Cas answers patiently, then points ahead to an empty spot near the end of the row. Dean inches the Impala up, then curses when they realize a motorcycle is there, having been blocked from view by the surrounding SUVs.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m starving and could use some caffeine, too. Godfuckingdamn is there _anywhere_ to park?”

“Perhaps there will be another diner down the road,” Cas offers. “I’ll check.”

No matter how often he sees it, Dean will never get used to an Angel of the Lord using apps on a smartphone. At least Dean has managed to get him to tone down the emoticons in his text messages. (First it had been, “It’s bad enough we spend all our time deciphering fucking sigils and runes for cases and shit. I don’t want to spend twenty minutes trying to figure out that all you’re trying to text me is ‘I’m ok, see you back at the bunker’”, but eventually he’d had to go _Princess Bride_ on the guy after a few...awkward...texts: “Cas, you keep using that emoji. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Dean had deleted those texts as soon as possible and hoped that no one else, especially not Sammy, saw his phone.)

After a minute or so, Cas triumphantly looks up from his phone and announces that there is a café a mile away. Dean hrmphs and steers the car out of the lot and back onto the road. When they get to the café, Dean realizes his hrmph was warranted. All he wants is a decent burger and a simple cup of joe, but he doubts he’ll get it at this place. But, Cas looks so delighted at having located a place to eat, Dean swings Baby into the lot and they head into the café.

Perusing the menu, Dean’s worst fears are confirmed. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen the word “organic” so many times in his life. _Sammy’d love this place_ , he thinks with an inward eye-roll. Finally, he manages to find a half-way decent looking turkey sandwich on the list that doesn’t have any weird vegan crap messing it up, and he saunters up to the register with Cas in tow.

“Can I get a name for the order?” the bored looking twenty-something, with black rim glasses and a beard that wouldn’t look out of place among lumberjacks asks, in a drawl.

“Cas.”

“Dean,” Dean supplies half a second after the angel. Dean feels he should be annoyed with Cas for jumping in, but hey, it’s his coffee, too. Even if Dean’s paying for it.

They move down to the pick-up end of the counter. Dean checks his phone and responds to a couple texts from Sam as they wait.

“Casdean!” another barista, this one a tattooed young woman with auburn hair, calls. “Casdean!”

Dean freezes mid-text as the memory of Sam’s taunts outside that creepy _Supernatural_ high school musical float up in his brain. _“Destiel? Shouldn’t it be Deastiel?...Casdean?”_ He shakes his head.

“Dean? I believe that is our order. Should I get it?”

“Uh, um, yeah, I’ll give you a hand.”

With coffees and Dean’s sandwich in hand, they make their way to an open table by the windows. Dean hates to admit it, but the sandwich doesn’t look half bad—plenty of turkey, cheese, onions, bacon, tomato, and what looks like a tasty aioli (because yes, screw you, Dean has started to learn what aioli is thanks to his forays into the bunker kitchen). He takes a bite and lets out a “hmm” of approval. Cas watches him eat, which Dean feels he should be weirded out by, but at this point, he’s just gotten used to the dude’s intense blue stare.

Cas eventually takes a sip of his coffee, then studies the black sharpie scrawl on the cup. “‘Casdean,’” he reads. “They seem to have made a portmanteau of our name.”

Dean just snorts and takes another bite of his sandwich. “Could be worse,” he says without thinking, his mouth half-full. Cas tilts his head.

“How do you mean?”

Dean pauses, then swallows. _Oh just tell him. Only a matter of time before Sammy starts dropping more hints while Cas is around. Play it off like a joke and then it won’t be awkward around Sam anymore._ “Um, well, you know how I told you about that musical version about our lives? The one based off of Chuck’s books?”

“Yes. You said it was ‘fucking weird as hell.’” 

“Yeah, well, they, um, made some creative interpretations with some of the characters. Like us. They called it...Destiel.” The word almost gets caught in Dean’s throat, but he coughs it out, then looks around as though someone could be listening in.

“Destiel?” Cas ponders. “Shouldn’t it be—?”

“If you fucking say ‘Deastiel’ I’m gonna kill you, Cas.” The angel looks confused and hurt, and Dean instantly feels like a complete jackass. “I’m sorry, man.”

“What is the problem with Destiel or Deastiel? And I don’t understand what you mean by ‘creative interpretations.’” Dean can practically see the air quotes even though Cas doesn’t actually do them.

Dean takes a sip of coffee. “They...they suggested we were together. Like _together_ together.”

“You mean romantically?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Cas says, looking down at his hands wrapped around the coffee cup. After a moment he looks back up at Dean. “And that bothered you?”

“Well...” The alarm bells are going off in his head, screaming at him to just deny everything, but Cas is wearing a puppy-dog look that could rival one of Sam’s. “Not exactly. I just... Wait. Are _you_ not bothered by it?” _Smooth, Winchester. Deflection at its best. Well done._

“I wouldn’t want anything that would make you uncomfortable,” Cas says carefully.

 _Huh._ Apparently two can play the deflection game. _Sly sonofabitch._ Dean takes another bite of his sandwich, chewing over the turkey as he chews over the current conversation.

“The two girls playing us were dating. In real life,” Dean offers finally.

“I see.” Cas looks at him and Dean can tell there’s a hint of hope in those blue eyes.

“They seemed happy. I dunno. It was kinda nice.”

“Everyone deserves to be happy. Even if they don’t believe it themselves.” Cas’ earnestness hits Dean in the gut. It’s not the first time the angel has said something so honest and blunt like this, but for some reason, it finally sinks in this time. _Oh fuck it, Winchester. Just go for it. Don’t even try to deny it—you’ve wanted to for years._

“Maybe Casdean or Destiel wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?” Dean suggests, almost timidly, the blood pumping in his ears. “I mean, if you...”

“I agree, Dean,” Cas smiles with relief, a relief that Dean shares as he exhales. Dean’s lips quirk up at the corners in reply, and Cas says contemplatively, “Perhaps the girls’ interpretation is not as ‘creative’ as they think.”

"Maybe," Dean admits. 

They look at each other in silence, the coffee and sandwich momentarily forgotten. Dean glances around the café, then back to Cas, and clears his throat.

“Well, uh, Cas, if you’re done with your coffee...maybe we should...get out of here?” Suddenly this coffee shop is just far too public for Dean’s liking. It takes a minute for Cas to get Dean’s meaning, but then the angel’s eyebrows rise.

“Ah, yes, I’m done. It was good coffee,” Cas says with deliberate seriousness. Dean quickly grabs some napkins to wrap up the rest of his meal (so what if he has a hot angel waiting to leave with him—the sandwich was damn good and Dean has a feeling he might need some sustenance later), and if the barista who called up their order smirks at them when she sees Dean take Cas’ hand on their way out the door, well good for her.

Casdean, Destiel, Deastiel just left the subtext.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos appreciated!
> 
> Check out my other works (sorted by series for easier navigation):  
> [Grey's works](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/series)  
> Come visit me on Tumblr! @[grey2510](https://grey2510.tumblr.com/)


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